


Truce

by wowthatsloud



Category: Haven - Fandom
Genre: Friendship, Gen, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-07
Updated: 2015-02-07
Packaged: 2018-03-10 21:51:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3304715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wowthatsloud/pseuds/wowthatsloud
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Early S4. Nathan has been relentless in retrieving any and all information about the Barn, and he's realised just how insensitively it's caused him to treat some people - particularly Jennifer. It's up to him to find a way of apologising.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Truce

Living in an already-owned apartment made Jennifer jumpy. As if it wasn’t enough the girl who owned it was the only reason she was in this town, and seemingly, the only reason anyone around here was functioning, the apartment above the Grey Gull made Jennifer feel… inadequate, at the best of times.

At the worst of times, with her memory fresh with the menacing mob that she had seen immediately upon arriving in Haven, who seemed to have more guns than reason, it made her feel absolutely mortified.

Especially when she began to hear rustling and footsteps behind her front door.

Fear and uncertainty temporarily locked her in place before the rational side of her brain took over, reminded her that _she was Jennifer Mason_ , and she wasn’t going to let herself be ambushed by some psycho Trouble-cult person in this life or the next.

Waving the biggest kitchen knife she could find in absence of her trusty baseball bat, she crept towards the door and flung it open, ready to drive her hoisted blade into the fool that thought to mess with her in the first place. Recognition sparked before she could do anything though – it wasn’t an overzealous Guard member come to visit her, it was Nathan Wuornos.  He with the piercing eyes and perpetually deflated demeanour, as of a balloon left long after a party that’s slowly lost its air and sunk. He was for some reason crouched at her front doorstep. Realising the door had opened, he raised those eyes to meet hers, wide, holding some sort of envelope in his left hand.

“Oh. I didn’t know you were home.” Nathan straightened up, eyes darting between Jennifer and the blade in her hand, paper envelope hanging loosely from his own.

"Oh thank god, I thought you were coming to kill me." Jennifer set her knife down, placing a hand over her heart to placate its frantic beating. "Seriously, don't do that."  
"Oh," he said, momentarily overcome by guilt. "Sorry."  
Jennifer seemed to be over the dramatic moment, and was instead now focused on the envelope that Nathan was holding. "Hey, does that envelope have my name on it? Let me see!”

“I thought you weren’t home,” Nathan repeated, lifting the envelope so that Jennifer could all but snatch it away.

It contained a card featuring two patchwork teddy bears front and centre, with one enthusiastically hugging the other. Below them, the words ‘I’m Sorry’ were printed in impossibly bubbly font. Inside, a cramped, spiderlike scrawl formed a brief handwritten message.

_Jennifer,_

_Sorry for the way I’ve been acting over this barn thing. I was a huge jerk to you when you were only trying your best to help and it was unnecessary. I forget how lucky I am that you managed to find Haven and everything you've made possible since then. You have been an amazing addition to Haven and I hope you can forgive my stupidity._

Nathan fidgeted while she was reading, clearly not having prepared to be there in person when Jennifer received the card.

It was evidently clear he wasn’t – the reflexive tensing of his muscles as Jennifer closed her arms around him said enough of the story. Bit by bit, she felt him relax, even begin to lift his arms to hug back, and Jennifer would have considered that admission of humanity as big a victory as any if it weren’t for having to break from him so quickly. She had spotted a small notepad-size slip of paper flutter away from her hand, and realised it must have come out of the card without her noticing.

Jennifer grabbed it before the wind could take it, examined the paper written in the same cramped writing that she had finished reading just now.

“What’s this?”  
“It’s… a recipe. For the tuna bake Duke said you liked so much. I figured it was the least I could do.”  
“Wait, the tuna bake? From last week at Duke’s?”  
Nathan nodded, and Jennifer gave a single, dry laugh at that, confirming Nathan’s worry that the gesture was unwelcome and more than a little silly.

Jennifer shook her head slightly, laughter still on her lips. “You see, Duke told me _he_ made that tuna bake.”  
Nathan looked up, not at all expecting that. “He must have been mistaken,” he said diplomatically, a smile on his face to match the growing one on Jennifer’s as they both thought of what their ponytailed friend’s explanation would be for this – _She said I cooked really well, who was I to argue?_ – or something along the lines.

Jennifer twirled Nathan’s card between her fingers as she considered something. “Okay, I’ll accept your apology, on one condition.”

“A condition?” Jennifer’s reception to him had been warmer than Nathan could have ever expected, so her teasing put her more at ease instead of less.

“Yes, a condition. I can barely pronounce some of the herbs you put down in this recipe, but it's delicious. If you show me how to make it one time, we're even. Deal?"

Nathan prepared to tell Jennifer she wasn't giving herself enough credit, that she would get through the recipe fairly easily if she put her mind to it, then he saw the glimmer in her eyes. The one that let him know that they both knew she didn't need the help - she needed something a lot harder to obtain. And the thought of someone caring despite everything, wanting Nathan and his company after everything he'd done, gladdened him and broke his heart all at once.

But he was getting sick of living like a dying man, even if he deserved it. So he took Jennifer's outstretched hand and shook it once, affirming the contract between them. "Deal."

**Author's Note:**

> missing a sense + having a heightened level of all others + being particularly sensitive to taste and flavour = Nathan is a secret cooking buff. ya or neh?


End file.
